


Few choices

by ShouldProbsBeSleeping (Courtoffools)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Time Travel, is it canon divergence if its set before canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-01-04 06:42:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12163560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Courtoffools/pseuds/ShouldProbsBeSleeping
Summary: Koharu knew one thing.  That she couldn't pass this opportunity up. She could not allow her village to be destroyed by Pein.Or the time travel fic to early Konoha that no one asked for.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a self indulgent attempt at writing done by someone who was the bane of all their english teachers existence. But honestly I haven't really seen a fic that focuses on young team Tobirama. So I've decided to make one. I've added time travel cause why not.

_Danzo has the sharingan. How? When? Whose?_

She’s a ninja now. She is a ninja of the leaf, and Konoha is going to be the greatest power in the world.

_Danzo has the sharingan and Konoha is devastated around her. He would kill little naïve Tsunade if it meant he could rule over this ruin._

Her father is going to be so proud of her when he returns. He will see what a good choice joining the village was.

_Her hands have betrayed her as the sebon sails through the air. Her accuracy is off. She is unable to stop him._

Out of all the girls in her class, her throwing has always been the best. More importantly is that she is better than all but two of the boys.

_She hasn’t seen eyes that red in years. She has never seen that pattern. She feels a pull, but on what she does not know._

She is young enough that she has never seen, only heard of the sharingan. Heard stories of eyes like blood, like fire. Her grandmother says that they can see the future and rewrite the past. She doesn’t believe that.

_She had been betrayed by him before. It shouldn’t really surprise her that he is doing it again._

Tomorrow she will be placed on a team and given a sensei. She is going to be a shinobi they can’t ignore. 

_She is fading from time itself._

When she wakes up, she finds that she is a different version of herself.

 

Kaharu pulled her chakra fully into her coils quickly, away from all other influence. The disruption of her chakra is immediate, done as she brought her hands up with a murmured “kai.” That ruled out genjutsu. Danzo had attacked her. Danzo had betrayed her. She had stared into mangekyo sharingan and then she had woken up. Unhurt and Unrestrained. The techniques of the mangekyo weren’t well known. She was not being devoured by black flames. With Tsukuyomi, even if you were unable to break the genjustu you were at least able to tell that you were in one. Kakashi-kun was able to create dimension pockets. Perhaps this jutsu was similar to that.

In pre-dawn light, Koharu looked around the room to find that it was one she hadn’t slept in in years. She stretched out her chakra sense. Her grandmother Yukiko’s chakra was nearby, unmistakable, impossible to copy. She felt the gentle wave as her grandmother used her chakra to warm water up in the kitchen. Four chakra signatures were in the house to her left. The house to her right held two signatures, that of her uncle and aunt. They had died on a merchant mission before she had made chunin. Her senses were to vivid for this to be a dream, her chakra to ordered for it to be genjutsu. If this was the power of the mangekyo, if the chakra signitures around her really meant she was in the past, it was a power she had never heard confirmed. Was this Danzo’s idea? Had he come to the past to change Konoha’s future? Was he so upset that he wasn’t chosen to rule that he would throw the life he had lived away? He probably had not meant to bring her along. 

Koharu stood and walked over to grab the small mirror that was laid by the brush on her table. The young face that stared back at her seemed wrong, like a half forgotten memory. The forehead protector on the table beside it said that she was already a genin. The lack of scratches and dirt on the cloth suggested that she hadn’t been one for long.

Koharu was at a loss about what to do. What, exactly was she suppose to do with 60 years worth of information. Was it prevalent to the village if it hadn’t happened yet? Would telling change the timeline beyond compare? Would telling help? The village she had worked to preserve for over sixty years had fallen. Pein had destroyed it, almost completely. She couldn’t let that happen again. 

Her grandmother’s voice called out for her, she hadn’t heard it in years, “Koharu, come eat, you need to be at the academy by dawn for team assignments. I hear they are assigning jonin to watch over training.”

Koharu already knew who her team was going to be, and now she knew when she was. Today was the day that she would pass Sensei’s bell test.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bell test is given

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I updated this. I might try doing short chapters biweekly.

Koharu decided that seeing people that had died years ago was a strange experience. Perhaps worse though was the fact that they did not know her the same way, nearly everything they had done together was not in their past. It was in their future. 

She walked down streets of wooden houses that were so new it made her chest ache towards the ninja academy. The original structure and not the one built after the second war. 

She didn’t notice him until after she had walked into him. Kagami. Small with ruffled hair and a grin. Kagami. Without a hint of the shoulders he would grow into. Kagami who died when he should have lived, and would have lived had she been faster. Kagami—whose clansmen’s eye had put her in this position in the first place. If she decided to tell her secret to anyone, it must never reach the ears of the Uchiha clan. Who knows what they would do with the power. 

“Hey, Koharu-chan, you okay?” Kagami was smiling, but the crease in his brow meant he was concerned. 

“I’m fine Kagami-san, just worried about our team assignments.” Koharu had long since learned that a half truth was better than a full out lie. She was worried. She was 60 years in the past and unsure of what Danzo had done. That didn’t bode well for herself, and if she had been an unwilling passenger. . .

Danzo was willing to kill for his vision of the future. If he was back, then she could tell no one about what had happened. She would have to watch her back, and Hiruzen’s now that she thought about it. Danzo would never get the Hokage’s hat as long as Sarutobi remained an option. But their jobs were deadly, an it wouldn’t be impossible to arrange an accident to take Saru-kun out of the game.

Koharu walked in silence to the academy, Kagami a shadow at her shoulder then next to her in line. The first Hokage was ready to address the first students to ever come out of the academy.

“You all are the first generation of nin who are from Konoha, and you will become the sentinels who watch over it. Each of your families came here because they believed that peace was achievable in the land of fire. They believe that we are stronger together than we are apart. You will be the generation that mends the divides between the clans and puts to rest the dark history between one another. For Konoha to prosper we must put our faith in one another, and believe that they burn with the same will to keep our home protected. For that purpose we have put you into teams for the next stage of your training. I hope that you can see your teammates as brothers in arms, as a family even.”

The ceremony was just like the first time, and like so many other graduation ceremonies that she had attended over the years. Soon the Hokage was reading out the names of the teams who passed. “. . .Mitokado Homura , Utatane Koharu and Sarutobi Hiruzen under Senju Tobirama. Uchiha Kagami, Shimura Danzo, Akamichi Torifu under Yamanaka Inomaru. . .” Kagami left her side as he drifted off to find his team. She saw Danzo, trying and failing to keep his ire off his face. While Yamanaka Inomaru was an excellent teacher, Danzo had always looked up to Tobirama-sensei, the ghost of the battlefield. 

Koharu felt Sensei’s chakra near the door. Once upon a time she had been nervous and excited that she was going to be taught by one of the greatest ninja in the village. This time those feelings were still there, but it was because she was going to see her Sensei again. He had meant so much to her. He had meant so much to her team and to her village. 

It was time for her to get a bell.

* * *

When Koharu was eight, the first time that she was assigned her team, she believed it was because she was the best kunoichi of her class. Her older self had a better understanding of why Tobirama had handpicked her. It was because of her sensing abilities. While limited sensing abilities could be trained by anyone, a strong chakra sense was something that you were born with, like an Inuzuka’s nose or a Uchiha’s strong sight. Out of her graduating class only she had the ability to identify chakra down to the person. It was also an ability that Tobirama was famous for.

Her entire team was chosen for Tobirama based on what he could pass down to them. Hiruzen had the largest chakra stores in her graduating class, and a well balanced chakra signature that could be trained for several affinity releases. Sasuke Sarutobi, his father, had been renowned for his abilities with a staff and blade. Tobirama was one of the best choices to teach him ninjutsu and kenjutsu. Meanwhile, Homura had had the highest theory scores of the class. He was picked for his ability with seals and in the hope Tobirama could pass on his research into jutsu creation. 

Even their family status hadn’t been overlooked. The Sarutobi clan had been staunch allies of the Senju clan to the South. Her own family had been decimated by the clan wars, and the first time around she had been the only survivor past the first war. By picking her Tobirama-sensei was showing all of the smaller families that had settled in Konoha that they wouldn’t be forgotten. Homura’s family was closely allied with the Huyga, but at the same time Homura and herself weren’t so important that it would be a problem if the team met an unfortunate end. 

The field Tobirama led them to was large, with a creek running through and heartwood trees on either side. He turned to face his new students. “My name is Senju Tobirama. You will address me as Tobirama-sensei. You have likely heard about me, but I do not know you.” Not strictly true, he had watched enough practices at the academy to pick them out. “Please, introduce yourself and tell me what kid of ninja you want to be, and what you believe your strengths are.” 

“Hi, my name is Sarutobi Hiruzen, and I want to be a ninja like my father so that I can lead my clan. I like learning ninjutsu, and I am going to learn as many of them as possible. I hope to learn them all!” Hiruzen was all childish enthusiasm and curiosity at this age.

“My name is Mitokado Homura. I want to be a ninja so that I can protect my family. My favorite part of class was learning about seals. I hope one day that I am able to be as good at sealing as Lady Mito.”

“My name is Utatane Koharu. I wish to be a ninja so that I can keep Konoha safe. I have a good chakra sense and I believe that I can develop it and become a strong tracker. In addition I also enjoyed weapons training and hope that I can become proficient in using a blade.” 

Tobirama’s eyes lingered on the three of them before he reached into his pocket. He pulled out three bells. “The academy has deemed you ready to become ninja’s to the standard of Konoha. I, however, have not deemed you to be good enough to become my team. I know nothing of your skills except what you have told me.” That was a lie. His chakra had lingered near the academy during student sparing and demonstrations. “To insure that you are good enough for me to train, I’m going to have you try to receive these bells. To get them, you will need to come at me with the intent to kill.” Tobirama vanished from sight, his chakra reappearing 25 meters behind. The average academy graduate could sense up to 15 meters while meditating. She could currently sense 30 with minimum effort.

Homura had pulled out a fuma shuriken. Hiruzen was getting ready to use a replacement jutsu to hide. She grabbed his arm to disrupt his handseals. Like the first time, they hadn’t realized the object of the test. “We have to plan together if we want to win. Individually we don’t stand a chance. Even together we are stupidly outclassed.”

“And what do you suggest we do? Flower arrange him to death?” Komura had forgotten how annoying Hiruzen had been as a boy. It hadn’t been until she had added a natural laxative to his tea that he had taken her plant knowledge seriously.

“Well, unlike you I know where he is.” She had their attention. “We won’t get anywhere all attacking him at once. Our best bet is an ambush. Homura, you're the best at traps. You and I will set them up by the trees. Hiruzen, do you think you could lead him over to us.”

“Of course, but do you think traps will really work?”

“Do you have a better plan? No?? Then go. Do try to distract him enough that he can’t pay attention to what we are doing.”

The likelihood of the plan actually working was slim, but doing too well on the test could raise Danzo’s suspicions. For now she would have to use academy level skills, even if that meant there was little chance of actually beating Tobirama-sensei’s test.

Plans rarely survive first contact. Five minutes into trap setting Koharu heard Hiruzen’s high pitched yelp. Homura abandoned his position, ready to help Sarutobi. “Lets circle around them so we can drive him towards the trap.” 

When they came to the clearing where Hiruzen’s signature was, Koharu could still sense Tobirama’s signature just out of sight. He was watching their reactions. Homura hurriedly cut the ropes off of Hiruzen.

They had set enough traps that it was possible that they could trap him for a second. Maybe two. It was better than nothing. 

She unleashed a volley of kunai at Tobirama-sensei, carefully aimed to make him go to the left, though he would probably think it was coincidence. 40 meters would get them to the first of the traps. Homura leaped to engage as soon as Tobirama’s position was revealed with Hiruzen a second behind. Koharu hung back, ready with shuriken and kunai to redirect Tobirama if he started moving away from where the traps were.

Tobirama let himself be pushed back 30 meters without much resistance, blocking and dodging instead of taking openings. Finally he caught Hiruzen’s leg as he tried to sweep Tobirama from behind, using the momentum to throw him into Homura. The both went down in a pile of limbs. 

Koharu came in close to engage while they recovered, a kunai in her hand and a wish for a much longer blade. She managed to push him back one, two, three steps and suddenly he was behind her, her own kunai at her throat.

Her limbs were heavy and rooted to the ground—genjutsu, and an excellent one for when you had a hostage. She curled her chakra in to break it, strands of Tobirama-sensei’s chakra suddenly unable to grab purchase.

It would take her all of two seconds to reach up and grab the bells, throw them to the boys. 2 seconds she didn’t have. Her thoughts were interrupted by Tobirama speaking again. “I think that you have all done well. While you were unable to get your objective, you were able to pool your abilities as a team to come closer than you would have individually. We have put you on teams because we hope for better cooperation between the clans and families that now make up Konoha. Meet me here tomorrow, so that we may start your training. For now, go home to your families, I am sure they are eager to know about your placement.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a self indulgent attempt at writing done by someone who was the bane of all their english teachers existence. Furthermore I didn't get it beta'd :/


End file.
